(Jottings from Jonah (Oscar the owl’s cultured grandson) - Number 31)
“The best way to preserve any species,” said Oscar, “is to farm it for food.”
We were sitting around the galley-table – Oscar, Sam Adams and me (well, I was perched on the lamp-bracket) – discussing everything in general at the end of a tough evening with the Actors’ Workshop. Cara and Penny had decided to leave we men to our deliberations and return to their respective homes, Cara to their apartment and Penny to our nest among the ivy under the eaves of the Granary Theatre, Malcaster. Sam’s day had been even harder than ours, now that the workmen were so far ahead with the restoration of the old Riverside Theatre, where Sam is going to make his future home in the old caretaker’s flat. The improvements there are more extensive than first planned because, when they gained access to the original drawings during the planning application, they discovered that the structure was not built on stilts merely to protect it from river-flooding, but the spaces between the stilts should have been filled in to make either a boat-house or a scenery workshop. This was now being done with weatherproofed walls.
“Agreed!” I acquiesced with alacrity, but by that time they had forgotten what we were talking about. In any case, Sam is only slowly catching up with Oscar in the art of communicating telepathically in English, as we owls do. Mostly, he depends upon Oscar to repeat my thoughts to him out loud, but gradually he’s catching on. Tonight (not unusually) their thought processes are hampered by liberal applications of a drink named after one of our avian celebrities, a chap who turned in such a convincing acting performance that he persuaded the lady of the manor where he lived in Scotland to ban the shooting of birds on her land, so the drink named after him is called ‘The Famous Grouse’
Sam and Oscar drink quite a lot of it in the evenings when we’ve finished work. I’ve had a few sips, but can’t say I enjoy it with the same relish as the other two chaps.
“Sam....” said Oscar, carefully and after a thoughtful pause, “I need to address a difficult subject with you. Don’t worry, I’m sure we can rely on Jonah to keep our confidence.” I dropped – well, glided really - down onto the table-top between them and nodded to each of them in confirmation, then raised a wingtip to my beak as a signal of my complicity: “Tap-tap, mum’s the word,” sort of thing.
Sam looked up at us and frowned. “What on earth could be so serious?” he asked. Quite a few weeks have passed since he returned to Malcaster. In that time, we have established that he has spent the intervening forty-five years in a most adventurous manner. Because he spent a little longer than Oscar at learning to be an engineer, he missed the dreaded National Service and used some of his secret savings (see my jotting numbered 25 and entitled ‘Back from 1952’) to pay his way through drama school. When, after that, he failed to find work in Theatre – probably because he was too good looking – he reverted to his alternative profession as an engineer, bought himself a sea-going yacht and sailed off in search of work wherever in the world he could find it. Because oil refineries are often built in the region around sea-ports (I’m sure you can see the sense of that) he usually found a safe mooring for his yacht in the near vicinity of his work, so he lived aboard and amassed lots of money. Wherever he was, he publicised his love of Theatre and made no secret of his qualification to teach speech and drama. As a result there are, dotted all over the world, theatre groups located near sea-ports that work to an exemplary standard and owe their foundation and continued existence to Sam. He returns to us having lived a full and satisfying life.
“It’s about Gwyneth,” said Oscar.
A storm-cloud settled over Sam’s brow. “What about Gwyneth?”
“She’s been waiting for you,” said Oscar. “And, since your return, her anger has intensified from day to day until, now, she’s hopping mad and doing all in her power to thwart our progress with the Actors’ Workshop, which she refers to as ‘The Splinter Group’. You’ve got to understand, Sam, that Gwyneth has become a powerful member of the Granary Players. Nobody else dares to tackle any Shakespeare plays; as a director she’s made The Bard her own property....”
“A director?” blinked Sam. “You mean our little Gwyneth has become a...”
“An extremely authoritarian director. When she’s ready to cast a production she already knows exactly how every move, mood and moment should be played. Set, sound, lights, wardrobe, props, publicity and even programme design have all been carefully planned, entirely by herself. Heaven help anyone who suggests an alternative. Our Gwyneth brooks no interference.”
“And here we are, encouraging the kids to think for themselves.”
“Exactly.”
“But, what do you mean, ‘she’s been waiting for me’?”
“Did you promise to come back and marry her?”
“Only as a means of gaining access to areas that were otherwise forbidden. Didn’t we all do the same? Didn’t you with Cara? ... among others?”
Oscar allowed a secret smirk of recollection to glimmer briefly as he said, “Ah, but Sam, my old friend, the difference is that I actually came back and married Cara, whereas...” He left the thought hanging before Sam’s rueful acknowledgement that facts were facts, that history was undeniable and that he was guilty as charged.
“Have there been no other men in her life?” he asked
“Not one. Not even work-colleagues or actors she’s worked with. Not once. And she stayed in touch with your parents right up until they passed on, even occasionally attending services at your father’s chapel. Now.... well, now you’ve come back, as you promised you would, and you’ve virtually ignored her. It’s a dangerous situation, Sam.”
“It’s only you and Cara, and my parents, that I kept in touch with in Malcaster.”
“Yes, we’ve enjoyed your Christmas cards from far-flung corners, usually accompanied by snaps of you wrapped in the embraces of various young ladies.”
“I’ve maintained my bachelorhood, Oscar, but I took no vow of celibacy.”
Silently, they took swigs from their Famous Grice, while I paced up and down on the table-top, my head bowed in thought and my wings folded behind my back.
“I only wanted to save her from dying in ignorance,” muttered Sam.
“Somebody had to do the job,” said Oscar, and they both took big swigs.
The problem was that Gwyneth had assembled a body of opinion among the membership of the Granary Players. Only Cara had been aware of the true reason for her resentment and, through her, Oscar. All other members believed Gwyneth when she complained that the new ‘splinter group’ – the Actors’ Workshop – was certain to undermine the Granary’s tradition of ‘professionalism’. When asked in private by Oscar to define what she meant by ‘professionalism’, Gwyneth had snapped that he knew perfectly well what she meant, it was a question of ‘standards’.
I tuned into Sam’s thoughts, aware that his frown betrayed concern.
His decision to return to Malcaster had been long delayed and then made with reluctance when a medical insurance company had demanded a high premium before agreeing cover for a refinery project in Venezuela. Of course he remembered Gwyneth, she had always provided a distant romantic memory as he lived out his life, but now... when he met her again, he scarcely recognised her. He imagined his boat rocking at her Milford mooring, still unsold and eager to start the voyage to South America. He remembered some of the other projects and the people he had met while working on them in Abu Dhabi, Sines in Portugal, Kandle in India... best of all the halcyon days in County Cork, where he was recognised and called on to direct some more plays... by Friday night he could be moored at Kinsale, welcomed by all his friends there... but here he was, back in England. He knew full-well, before he decided to return here, that few would remember him and those that did would doubt his yarns... all except Oscar and maybe Cara. Gwyneth he had expected to be married and settled, not... he knew that the Malcaster intelligentsia – the same as all other small-town no-hopers in England – would pay no credit to his theatrical achievements on account that they had not seen them happen and he could claim anything. Rather than being impressed by his qualification and experience, they would feel intimidated... he had decisions to make.
He opened his eyes, raised his head and stared at Oscar, who stared back, waiting for a reaction, a response, a decision. The Famous Grouse was getting low, but it afforded two more tots and the promise of a little dribble to follow.
The two of them drank in silence before Sam said, “We’ve come a long way this past few weeks, Oscar. I’m of a mood to sweat it out and dare them to shift me.”
“Good man!” enthused Oscar. “We’ll see it through,” and they drank.
“Ahem,” I coughed, and they both tuned in to my thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about the show. There are fifteen trainee actors and two young directors in the Workshop, and they’re all agreed about the shape of the show: first the Orton play, then a self-made piece as the second half, after the interval. Already the ideas have started to flow as to how we can show that today’s workplace atmosphere has been shaped by big business to line their pockets without regard for the harm they do to society and to people, right?”
They nodded and waited, so I continued.
“What if...” I began. “What if – in our improvised play (and you’ll have to discuss this with Skap as its director.. what if we follow the fortunes of a mature lady who has seen all the changes and now needs to survive...” I got no further.
“You mean...” said Oscar. “Involve Gwyneth in the Workshop as the central character in the improvised play?” I nodded.
“For Gwyneth, it would be a completely new way of working,” I said, “but I think she’d take to it as a means of getting close to Sam or a duck to water as it were.”
Sam’s complexion paled. He was horrified by the prospect before him, but the alternative involved defeat and flight from the field of battle, pursued by an angry little old lady. He drained the grouse in one, straight from the bottle.
Jonah was a very experience director, teacher and writer who sadly passed away in February 2006. He was also the author of the highly successful "Playmaker - The Craft of Directing Plays (The Way I Seen It)".